Sometime toward the end of August I'm going to Calabria. That's the far-flung toe of Italy's boot, and you can read about it here. My sister and her husband just bought a small house there in the town of Gioiosa Jonica, on the Ionian Sea coast. I've been reading about the area. It sounds a bit like the Western Isles of Scotland, except of course completely different. Here are some books about Calabria.